Chapter 13 Saturday, 13 June 2026
The second Hannah’s Lenox Martini was gone, another appeared before her.
Alongside it was a piping hot plate of seared halibut.
The fish sat atop a verdant bed of English pea purée and had been finished with a champagne beurre blanc – still a Lenox Club house favourite.
She raised the martini glass to her lips and took a sip.
Her head felt clear. She’d sworn to cut herself off after two drinks, but that had been before the night extended into tomorrow morning.
As long as she paced herself, and kept eating, she’d be fine.
Writing required strong coffee and ideally a dish of Marcona almonds, slightly warmed, a preference she was loathe to admit she’d developed at the DuPonts’ home back in her Prescott days.
But while she would never confess as much to her boss, sometimes a drink or two helped her get her bearings during the early stages of a difficult story, opening her to angles she might otherwise dismiss.
Tackling the investigation was, in many ways, similar to researching a story.
The suspect list was long and the relationships difficult to unravel, especially with so few of her former classmates eager to talk.
She’d need to make the most of Theo’s presence at her table until he changed his mind or someone else crashed their party of two. She took another sip of her drink.
‘That was fast.’
Hannah turned to Theo, who was enjoying his second – or was it his third? – martini.
She raised her fork. ‘What was?’
He nodded in the direction of the stairwell, where Gemma Phipps, who had gone up to speak to the detectives following the conclusion of Edward’s interview, was now stepping back into the lounge and making her way over to the library, which had mostly emptied out during the belated dinner service.
Hannah glanced down at the white linen, in search of her phone, before remembering the black velvet bag.
She peered through the arch and looked instead to the antique black-and-white clock above the bar.
Gemma had been upstairs for under fifteen minutes, making her interview the shortest of the night so far.
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth.
Gemma had every reason to want Madison dead, and very little other reason to be here tonight – but maybe the detectives knew something she did not.
Or perhaps Gemma had been able to present them with an ironclad alibi.
‘Very fast,’ she acknowledged to Theo. Carefully, she speared a bite of halibut and raised it to her lips.
‘She wasn’t invited, you know. Bash mentioned it earlier, at the bar. Tonight’s invitations went out to all Prescott Academy alumni. It’s a long list, but Gemma wasn’t on it.’
‘Because she didn’t graduate.’
‘Right.’ Theo knocked back the rest of his martini and glanced around for a server.
Hannah’s pulse picked up. ‘So how did she get in?’
‘Apparently she bought a ticket online, like the rest of us. Elle said something about a private link, but the site wasn’t secure? I have no idea what that means exactly, but you know Elle will be placing a call to the school when all this is said and done.’
Hannah swallowed. If Gemma had killed Madison – if she’d gained access to the 100 Year Anniversary Gala because of some technical oversight – heads at Prescott would roll.
Gemma’s brief time with the detectives did give her pause, but she remained a prime suspect in Hannah’s eyes. So, of course, did Elle Harrington, the only other person to warrant an immediate star beside their name on her suspect list.
‘About Elle,’ she said delicately while Theo signalled a server for another martini.
Her attempt at conversation earlier in the night had gone poorly to say the least – and that was before Elle’s best friend had been murdered and all eyes had fallen on Hannah.
If Elle hadn’t wanted to talk to her then, she certainly wasn’t going to give her the time of day now.
She’d need to get what she could from Theo.
‘Mmm?’ he asked.
Everyone else here seemed primed to conveniently ignore the facts, but Elle had been the actual last person seen speaking with Madison – not Hannah.
And Madison had expressly told her friend she was going to the ladies’ room.
Elle had opportunity, and if she’d come to the Lenox Club prepared to poison her friend, she would have had the means stashed away in her patent leather clutch.
What Hannah needed to learn more about was Elle’s motive.
‘She went to Harvard, then stayed in Boston after college,’ she said. ‘She’s only been back in the city for, what, two years now?’
Theo pushed away his plate of half-eaten fish and focused on his drink. ‘I think it’s been three,’ he said after a moment. ‘But yes, she studied math at Harvard undergrad, then did her MBA at Sloan.’
‘That’s MIT?’
He nodded. ‘Elle’s the smartest among us, by a long shot. She did her best to keep her brains under wraps at Prescott, but she’s always been ambitious and bright.’
Hannah’s eyes strayed to the gold and Murano-glass chandelier above.
She’d known that Elle had gone to Harvard undergrad, but she’d failed to clock her subsequent enrolment at one of the top business schools in the world.
It made sense. Since returning to New York, Elle had opened a financial consultancy, Harrington Strategic Insight, and racked up quite a client list. It took far more than a family name for the uber-rich to trust you with their money, and the challenges for a young Black woman in private wealth management would be especially steep.
Theo turned to her, frowning. He wasn’t showing overt signs of drunkenness, but his eyes were starting to lose focus. ‘You don’t really think Elle masterminded Madison’s murder, do you? I mean, she’s smart enough to pull it off, but despite their differences, they were still best friends.’
Hannah leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper.
‘You and I both know their friendship has always been complicated, at best. Whoever killed Madison made a glaring – and risky – statement by staging her murder at a crowded Prescott event. Madison was constantly upstaging Elle at school, knocking her down a peg so she could stay on top. She could be manipulative and downright cruel, and if Elle wasn’t her partner, she was her target.
No one wanted to dethrone Madison more than Elle Harrington. ’
Theo shook his head slowly back and forth.
His fine, white blond hair skimmed his forehead.
‘Leaving Prescott was good for Elle. Leaving New York was good for her. She’s not the same status-obsessed teen she used to be.
Things are different now. Madison doesn’t – didn’t – get to her the way she used to. ’
‘Of course not.’ She leaned back, then raised her martini to her lips.
‘But Elle’s in New York again. Madison DuPont and Henry Alcott Winslow’s New York.
Before she died, Madison’s roots here were deeper and shinier than ever – and if he wins his primary this month, her husband has a good shot at becoming mayor.
That could all bring back old feelings of jealousy, I imagine. ’
Theo placed his hand on top of Hannah’s, and her skin tingled.
It was a warm feeling, spreading all the way from her hand up her arm and across her chest. ‘I know you want to find Madison’s killer.
Clear your name. But I think you’re on the wrong track.
Distance was good for Madison and Elle – different colleges, different cities, different careers.
They went their separate ways for a while there, but lately, they’d become close again.
They weren’t the petty girls they used to be. ’
Hannah frowned. When he’d first sat down at her table, Theo had insisted that he and Madison hadn’t been close in years. But he seemed to know quite a lot about her recent relationship to Elle.
His hand was still resting lightly against her skin. He flexed his fingers, threading them through hers. Her eyes flickered to his in response. Was Theo acting on the old feelings she’d always suspected hummed between them, unspoken – or was he deliberately trying to distract her from Elle?
Slowly, she closed her fingers around his.
She could have this both ways. Maybe Theo was a bit of a distraction, but she wouldn’t be led off course.
Elle was extremely smart, smarter even than Hannah had realised, and Madison wasn’t the only one who could play.
Maybe Elle had only outwardly appeared to be cosying up to Madison since returning to the city.
Maybe she’d been biding her time, playing a long game…
Something needled away in her mind, something Theo had said about the ticketing website for the gala.
Elle said something about a private link, but the site wasn’t secure.
How exactly had Elle known there was a problem with the website?
Maybe she’d been remembering something that hadn’t seemed important until Gemma had appeared in the doorway to the club.
But there was another possibility. Had Elle had access to her phone tonight?
What if she had gone back to the website, noting its problems when Gemma walked through the door and Bash confirmed she’d bought a ticket?
And if she had had her phone…
Whoever killed Madison had turned off the lights somehow.
Either they’d been working with an accomplice who had access to the club’s electrical system, which was probably somewhere down in the basement, or perhaps they’d taken control of the lights through an app.
Meaning, of course, someone had smuggled in a phone.